The Catsup Post

Catsup, of course, being pronounced "catch-up".

Cruise Chronicles 4 marked the start of a vast downward spiral for my work ethic last March, a spiral that ended in a 1.7 semester GPA and some drastic changes to my studies.

Before you get out of shape - because, obviously, my school career is of utmost importance to you - I'm still here at Samford, and I hit Dean's List last semester.

However, 2011 was a heck of a year for so many reasons.  First and foremost, I will have been dating the girl of my dreams for eleven months come the sixth of this month.  Herein, you may be able to begin speculating what caused my half-semester-long absence from my schooling.

I was enraptured, entranced, absolutely crazy out of my mind trying to put words and meaning to the fact that I was, indeed, in love.  From about the first of March until the end of spring break, I could not put a million words, let alone two or three, to what I was feeling.  I think, deep down, I knew, but it took a lot of coercing - mostly from Amy - for me to come to terms with the fact that I had a huge, major crush on the girl that once sat in front of me in CP class.

Well, it was an interesting April.  We began trying to work out our relationship; on April 6 we became Facebook official.  Just like any young relationship, there was a lot of growing and adjusting early on.  My adjusting included putting school on the back burner.

Exams came and went, and we had to say good-bye for the summer.  Amy was off to Costa Rica for a seven-week research project, while I returned home and began to look for a job.

After three days of hard-core searching near the end of  May, I found myself that job.  I was offered a job at the Exxon Tigermarket convenience store practically the moment I walked in.  What followed was two and a half months of gas, hot dogs, and cigarettes (only consuming the first two, but selling all three) and a steady income.

In midst of all the work, I had little time for fun.  I think I was able to get to a couple of different pool parties in Hendersonville over the summer, and I did take an overnighter to Alabama to visit Amy and watch the premiere of the final Harry Potter movie.  Five hours of driving, three hours of sleep (maybe) and another long drive home ended in a seven-hour work shift in which I did my job probably only half as well as I should have.  I survived, though, and life went on.

Sometime during the summer, I made the decision that in order to get through my schoolwork and do so successfully, the Facebook had to go.  And go it did.  With the exception of Fall Break and Thanksgiving (and maybe once to check it hadn't completely been erased), I was completely Facebook-less last semester.  The results showed; as I mentioned, my 3.54 GPA last semester was good enough for Dean's List and raised my cumulative GPA to 3.0.

And thus the Semester of Hard Work and No Social Life began.  Okay, I over-dramatize, but it seems like I had no social life sometimes.  The countless study dates with Amy kept time rolling and before we knew it we had been dating for five, six, seven months.  I had a great class load.  Even the boring gen-ed classes were entertaining enough.  I wrote one, sometimes two stories a week for the Samford Crimson (see my constantly growing portfolio here).  My primary concerns were for myself and my girlfriend, and it hurts me to say I became distant from a lot of other people that were once important to me.  We'll get to that in a while, but let's get the six-week interim between semesters.

I was not able to retain my Tigermarket job for the winter break, so I generally sat around the house throughout January.  I did have an incredibly epic trip the week after Christmas.  I went with three other members and two adult leaders of my scout troop, as well as two scouts and an adult from South Dakota, to Florida Sea Base in the Keys.  For a week, we lived on island time, with our only clocks being the sun and tides.  It was a really relaxing and fun week, certainly a lifetime experience that I will never forget.

Shortly after this, the monstrosity known as Step Sing took over my life.  I arranged the music for Gamma Sigma Sigma and AAA's show "User Friendly", based on the premise of the movie Tron: Legacy.

It's a love-hate relationship, me and Step Sing.  At times I want nothing to do with it, at other times I am beyond thankful for the opportunity I had.  Near the end, most of the hate was directed at procedure and contest results with which I strongly disagreed.  All in all, the love aspect came out on top.

After Step Sing, the theme of my life quickly became Reconnect.  For the past three weeks, I've been trying to resurrect my social life.  The best part of it all is that I'm balancing work with that now.  I've still got a lot of night-before-they're-due assignments, but I crack down on studying when I need to and hang out when I don't.  I've been getting into routines, too.  I clean the room every Friday, go to class during the week and do a combination of working, hanging out, eating and sleeping the rest of the time.  It's worked so far this semester.

Tomorrow, I head for the mountains of North Carolina to support the Samford basketball teams as they seek to dominate the Southern Conference.  Not having much schoolwork, you might be able to expect a post or two with details.  If not, I'll be back blogging tomorrow, next week, next month or, you know, whenever.

Oh yeah, that's one more thing.  I'm restructuring CUBS.  And by restructuring, I mean taking away all structure and just doing what I do: write.  Whenever I have time and/or feel motivated, I'll write on this blog.  And it's probably a safe bet to say I won't write this much in a post very often.

Lastly, scientists reported today that the sky is green, roses are blue and violets are, in fact, polka-dot.

Just checking to see if you were still reading.

-Clayton

I just feel like ranting.

*RANT RANT RANT RANT RANT RANT RANT*

There. It doesn't make me feel much better, but I'll keep writing for a while.

Please, please, excuse any vulgarities that might escape my fingers in this blog. I'm THAT upset.

And there's really no need to be, which makes me even more irate.

It's those damn Yankees. Yeah, hate them more than I have in a while. It's just...grrrrr.

Tonight's baseball scores of course top off the 0-3 start to my preseason predictions, first with the cowboys beating cincy in the hall of fame game last sunday, and then with New England beating the Saints and oakland coming from behind in a lack of offensive production from dallas, which enabled the raiders' 17-9 win. Last time I put my faith in that "America's Team" this preseason. field goals the rest of the way for them.

Please help me remember the nation's favorite basketball and hockey teams so I can start rooting against them too.

gasjdpidajpogoajpgpjogdpjogpjogpojgsdapjogsdapjoga

On top of that, no one's playing in what should've been a glorious last three weeks of my lyric game.

I don't know what is up with that. Because no one's letting me know, except for Janie, their intents to stop playing. I'm considering as of now just stopping and not awarding any prizes.

But that conflicts my sense of commitment.

I think it's starting to sink in how close I am to being gone from Hville for an insanely extended length of time for the first time since 1996. I think the longest I haven't been home consecutively is about two weeks, and I'm about to spend two months in birmingham before fall break.

Wait, what!

Yeah, that can make a guy miserable.

On top of that, ***** GRAMMATICAL AND SPELLING ERRORS NEED TO STOP! I will go on a frenzy before long correcting everyone, especially those that are in school already. Bane of my existence.

hmmm...meteor shower tonight. I think I'm going to see if I can't see anything through the bright city lights of middle Tennessee.

And maybe make some sort of wish. Or refuse to believe in such poppycock.

Whatever.

I'm out.

NEW WEBSITE!!!

http://clayton4ever.tk

Here’s the coolest website in the history of the world.

Not really, but it is pretty nifty.

It came about as a bit of a joke/competition/etc

One night as we were playing the lyric game I posted a link as a lyric. The link was http://mattl.tk, and created by Merrol Hyde (and fb lyric game)’s own Marton. You’ll have to follow the link to understand what happened as a result, because I’m not telling :P But anyway, Marton, being the nerd and lyric game player he is, then created another site, posting it on my facebook wall with the comment, “Bonus Points?”

I didn’t give him any points, and he has also been outnerded. By the one and only David.

I told David and Andrew all about this story, and David decided, “Hey, I could make a ten million times greater site than that.” So began his task of building an astounding website that would make me sound conceited talking about it. As clayton4ever.tk continued to grow with each Barack Roll, cat, and spork, I became more and more impressed. So, it’s definitely not done improving; like ye olde faceybook, it’ll probably be making constant changes.

If you have any comments about the site, shoot us an email at clayton(at)clayton4ever.tk. Or, if you want to get directly in touch with the wonderful webmaster, he has a separate address which is sitemaster(at)clayton4ever.tk. Or you can always feel welcome to leave a comment on the blog.

Toodles, for now.

-c

I'm having babies!

That title caught your attention, didn't it? (teehee). The babies I'm referring to are in the nest on my windowsill. The nest and eggs had been sitting there for about two weeks; momma robin had been hanging around, so I knew the eggs would hatch. Today went up to put on some jeans so I could mow the yard, looked out the window, and there's a baby robin. Ran down and told dad, came back up after posting it on facebook (I named the bird Christopher), and when I got upstairs, a second egg was hatching! Decided to name that bird Larry, and last time I checked, he's still covered by eggshell, but out of the egg. Waiting for the third and final one to hatch. More will come on this blog, including pictures and stories of my growing babies.

-cth

Sounds Recap

So, my buddy David demanded that I blog about the game we went to on Saturday. So here it is:

the Sounds won 9-3.

That's about as much sports was included in my Saturday night escapade. But I'll kinda give you the slight play-by-play.

Beginning of the month- Dad: "Hey, Clayton, you want to go to a baseball game?"

Me: "Absolutely!"

Fast forward to Friday Night. Storms. Flash Flood warnings (yet again). We're not sure if we're going to end up going. (in the middle of this, we had a fried laptop hard drive, and the Lyric Game start was being postponed). Saturday morning, working on flood relief, the sun began to shine. However, it was short-lived; The rain and thunder started coming at around 3 in the afternoon. So, it was decided that I'd take Christopher to go see Iron man 2 (big whoop). We get back from dinner at Which Wich (good sandwiches), sun's back up. We're going to the baseball game! Mother and Christopher don't come, two extra tickets. We take Todd and David. Which is where the story really begins.

You have to get to know my buddy David a little better. David's like my little brother. Basically, he is. We go to church together, and our families used to carpool to and from school. David's a pretty intelligent and funny guy, although he's got a naturally loud voice and is often incapable of letting things go. David's the type of guy that has a problem with something, and makes sure everyone knows it. His big thing right now is against texting. Anyway, now that you David, let's continue on with the story

We get to the general area of Greer Stadium, have to park all the way at the science center. That's fine, long walk was good for us. Many laughs were had, Gingerbread men were quoted, and we might've started Rick Rolling by that time. Oh well, we get to the gate at the start of the second, GA was right there. so didn't have to go far at all once we got there. got a Sounds hat to show some Nashville pride, and also to add to my growing collection of ballcaps. The park played good music (except for once when they went off track and played Party in the USA, which by the way brings Marshall Brewer to mind every time I hear it now...beware, don't click on the link unless you want to be mentally scarred), some songs many more times than once.

Yours truly decided he'd start being a real creeper/jerk/loser/smart alec/loudmouth/idiot/etc about the second he got out of the car. Therefore, I think I might have worried David slightly. Anyway, the reading club thing that I used to do was there; they had a shirt that read "got books?" eventually I got to responding to each shirt, saying "Yeah, I got books." This quickly turned into an impromptu lame pickup line---"I got books, you wanna come to my place and see 'em?" There was a memorable moment, possibly in the sixth or seventh inning, in which I saw a trio of teenaged girls, shouted, "Look, it's Justin Beiber!" and they looked. That quite possibly made our night right there. Another time I made a complete fool of myself was jumpin' on it to Apache. If you've never seen me dance, be glad. It was atrocious. "Sweet Caroline" was a sweet moment, it's not everyday you get to scream "bum, bum, bum" and "so good, so good, so good" with 9,000 of your closest friends, especially at a baseball game. David's and my themes throughout the night were Ludacris' part in Beiber's "Baby" ("When I was thirteen, I had my first love..") and Rick Astley (never gonna give you up, etc). Knowing what we know about David from earlier in the blog, you can only imagine how many times the two came up in a 4-hour stretch. Speaking of stretch, we sang a particularly nasty rendition of "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" during the Stretch.

There was a fireworks show, in which there were many pop songs played. After the show, the car ride home was filled with quotes from the greatest kid's cartoon television show of all time, more rickrolling, and one more Ludacris reference. David trying to call his mom about a gazillion times, and her finally calling his dad. Great memories; hopefully we'll get a chance to get to another one before i leave in the fall.

I really need to get back to this...

Hey, blog buds, I'll be a little more active on Blogger now that my two big classes are done this year; after seeing how college goes this fall, I may or may not continue being active as the next NFL season comes around. Be sure to check out my facebook lyric game this summer. (All credit for the creation of the lyric game goes to Joey Meyer, but I'm doing it now.) I'll see ya'll later on the interwebz, so, TTFN.

-c

yep...

this has been the slowest day ever...and i really have done nothing productive...just sat around watching tv and doing the facebook thing...so...yeah...it sucks to be sick...i want to do some stuff (such as predictions email and english essay that's due monday...) but i'm not...and i'll be gone most of the day tomorrow...so basically i don't know how i'm gonna get stuff done...but hopefully i'll manage.

basically what's wrong with me is your typical viral crud...so i really can't do much about it...

later all...

go red sox, bison, and commandos tonight.

-cth